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Painters Eleven (also known as Painters 11) was a group of abstract artists active in Canada between 1953 and 1960.[1][2] They are associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement.[3]
Since the 1920s, artists in English Canada had been heavily influenced by the landscape painting of the Group of Seven, and the Canadian Group of Painters. The Canadian public often regarded modernist movements such as Cubism, Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism as bizarre and subversive. The acquisition of modernist paintings, even Impressionist works, by public galleries was invariably a source of controversy.
In Quebec, Paul-Émile Borduas and Jean-Paul Riopelle spearheaded the modernist collective known as Les Automatistes, as early as 1941. However, their artistic influence was not quickly felt in English Canada, or indeed much beyond Montreal.[4]
In 1953, Toronto artists Oscar Cahén, Walter Yarwood, and Harold Town discussed the possibility of mounting a group show of abstract paintings to strengthen public appreciation of the contemporary art form.[5] A few weeks later, artist William Ronald persuaded the Simpson's department store in Toronto to display some abstract paintings alongside their modern furniture.[6] During a publicity photo shoot for the Simpson's exhibition, entitled Abstracts at Home, Cahén proposed the group show idea, and a subsequent meeting at Alexandra Luke's cottage in Oshawa led to the formation of Painters Eleven.[7][8]
In 1953, eleven abstract painters from Ontario — Jack Bush, Oscar Cahén, Hortense Gordon, Tom Hodgson, Alexandra Luke, Jock Macdonald, Ray Mead, Kazuo Nakamura, William Ronald, Harold Town and Walter Yarwood — dubbed themselves Painters Eleven and held their first exhibition at Roberts Gallery in Toronto in 1954.[9] The exhibition, arranged by Jack Bush,[10] was the first major commercial exhibition of abstract expressionist art in Toronto.
Unlike the Group of Seven whose members' work evolved along parallel lines,[11] Painters Eleven did not share a common artistic vision as a group apart from a commitment to abstraction. This was reflected in the diversity of the group's members. Decades separated the youngest from the eldest, and before they sold their paintings they made their living as freelance commercial artists or worked in advertising and as art teachers. Two had studied at summer schools conducted by the American abstract expressionist Hans Hofmann and William Ronald "sat in" on his classes, while others were graduates of the Ontario College of Art, and still others were self-taught. Within the group itself, the artistic center of gravity seems to have been Oscar Cahén, a gifted European émigré who became well known as an illustrator for a number of national magazines.[12]
Stylistically speaking, Painters Eleven works were characterized by "rich colour and creamy impasto and impulsive spontaneous line"[13] often accompanied by an introspective note.[14] Kazuo Nakamura's abstract works were far more subdued than those of his colleagues, and he also created figurative paintings.[15] Some art historians have speculated that Nakamura's changed mood could stem from his time in Tashme Incarceration Camp during the Second World War.[8]
In Canada's conservative art world, their first exhibition was met with confusion and disdain, typical of new art movements throughout history. By their third exhibition, in 1957, they had established abstract expressionism in Canada. Painters Eleven attained U.S. exposure with a successful exhibition in 1956 with the American Abstract Artists at the Riverside Museum in New York City, although the group was still denigrated in Toronto.[16] In 1957, they were praised by the influential New York critic Clement Greenberg on a visit he paid to the group in Toronto. In the Canadian press, the group's most ardent supporters were art critic Robert Fulford and [art writer] Pearl McCarthy of the Globe and Mail. Eventually, the group's numbers were reduced by death and defection (Cahén was killed in a car accident in 1956, Ronald resigned in 1957) and the group formally disbanded in 1960.
Painters Eleven are credited with making English Canada's art-buying public more accustomed to abstract expressionist painting. Their influence on the next generation of Canadian artists was immense, and their art is now a prominent feature in public galleries and corporate and private collections throughout Canada and in many international collections. The largest collection of their works can be found at The Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa, Ontario.[17] Some of the group's members, notably Jack Bush, William Ronald[18] and Harold Town,[19] went on to greater success in the 1960s and 1970s. Jack Bush was given a major exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario in 1976, Harold Town in 1986 and Kazuo Nakamura in 2004 and 2024.[20] Works by the group's members are now fetching higher prices at Canadian fine art auctions. The last surviving member of the group, Tom Hodgson, a former Olympic canoeist and a dedicated abstract expressionist, died in 2006.
